


Narrow escape

by tanchouz



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 05:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9370253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanchouz/pseuds/tanchouz
Summary: at request "AU in which the police find out the truth about the Heisenberg case around season 3 or 4, forcing Walt and Jesse to go on the run together, Bonnie and Clyde style"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bisexualjesse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualjesse/gifts).



> I think it is not actually a Bonnie and Clyde style AU that you wanted and it is also set in earlier timeline, so I'm sorry for that, but I liked the idea very much and tried to write something about it. It is around season 2 when Tuco has kidnapped Jesse and Walter and Hank arrived a little earlier and was less lucky. And the place where Jesse and Walter were hiding near Tuco's house also differs a bit from what we saw in BrBa.
> 
> with many thanks to What_we_are for help in beting this fic!

Jesse crouched on the dusty ground. His adrenaline was still running high. The euphoria of their narrow escape mixed with sick horror. He raised his trophy pistol, holding it with both hands, and tried to concentrate. Mr. White beside him stirred, trying hard to repress his cough. 

The black SUV stopped, a man got out of it and Jesse suddenly thought that it was like watching a movie. No cola or pop-corn, rough grass instead of comfortable chairs, but he felt strangely safe as if he found himself in the back row of the cinema, watching terrible events unfolding on the screen. It was clear that a man was neither one of Tuco’s cousins nor even a friendly guest. He had a gun and a strong intention to finish what Jesse had started and Jesse wished him all success with all his heart.

“Come on...” he whispered, “Shoot him, bitch…” 

“Shut up.”

Two words, but said so angrily that Jesse gave a start. He turned his head carefully. Walter White was wiping his forehead, pale as death. He didn’t look at Jesse. He watched two men that were aiming at each other near the white cottage, and his gaze was so intent that his eyes probably burned under the glasses. 

“Oh, my god… It’s Hank… Hank!”

“What?! That DEA agent?”

The feeling of the false security was gone in a second, and Jesse dropped back into reality where he and his former teacher were lying in the bushes, gasping with the heat and smothering with dust, two steps shy of being murdered by drugged psycho or exposed by DEA officer. Jesse swallowed and wished he had groped the stone to smash Tuco’s face five minutes earlier.

“Mister White,” he said, hoarsely. “They don’t see us, let’s get outa here…”

And at the same very moment they started to shoot.

Jesse cowered on the ground, with his eyes closed, shoulder pressed by instinct to Walter’s. He almost heard bullets whistling over his head. 

Suddenly the gun fire was over and there was silence, save for hysteric noises coming from lowrider, kicking out like a wild horse. Walter’s shoulder was gone and Jesse opened his eyes.

“No!” he shouted in a furious whisper. “Wait, what the hell are you doing!?”

He tried to stop Walter by seizing his trouser leg, but the chemist pushed him away and ran to the cottage.

Jesse fought down the wild impulse to run the opposite direction and watched Walter coming to the body of his brother-in-law and kneeling beside it. Jesse saw him bending over Hank, then his shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and for a moment Jesse even felt sorry for Walter White. But he didn’t move until he was sure that none of the lying men gave any signs of life and no more shooting would follow.

Having approached cautiously to Tuco’s still body Jesse pushed him slightly with the toe of his sneaker. The man was dead as a door nail. Jesse looked at him with relief that comes when you see a rabid dog finally shot in the head. 

“He’s alive.”

Jesse stumbled back, his hand went to his gun and he realized that he has lost it in the bushes. 

He turned quickly.

Walter was holding Hank’s head carefully with both hands. He looked up and said again,

“He’s alive.”

Hank groaned, opened his eyes and fixed his gaze upon Jesse. His shoulder was covered in red.

“Shit,” Jesse involuntary gasped. 

“Go, find something. We have to stop the bleeding.”

Jesse made a few steps and came to halt.

“What?” 

Walter watched him angrily and impatiently from the ground. 

Jesse came up to the corpse, bent over it, took a gun from the limp hand, straightened up and turned around.

“What are you doing, Jesse?”

Walter’s voice was calm, the way people talk when they don’t really want to know the answer and just try to stop something wrong happening around.

“Sorry, Mr. White,” Jesse licked his lips. “But I’m not going to jail.”

He awkwardly put up the gun. His hands were trembling, his face became pale as if he felt sick.

“What!?... Jesse, no!”

Walter held up one hand, palm out. Hank groaned again but he watched Jesse intently as if trying to remember all his identifying features to bring to the DEA file. 

“No?” Jesse was breathing fast. “What’s your plan then, ha? Stop the bleeding, fine, but what’s next? Take him home and, like, ask not to tell anyone? He’s a DEA agent. He came here because he had reasons. It means he knows about us! He will fucking put us behind bars before you have time to say “wait”! Yeah, you may skip it, all right, good father, cancer thing and all that, but what about me? You dragged me into this and now want me to be a fucking nurse…”

They both involuntary shuddered as lowrider made a particularly loud sound and then stopped. Now they heard the monotonous bell-ringing, that Tuco’s uncle was producing over and over in the house, all helpless and full of panic.

Jesse glanced at his car and Walter used that moment to snatch Hank’s pistol and point it at Jesse.

They were aiming at each other, as if playing out the second episode of the duel in some kind of western story. 

“Want to get rid of an unwanted witness?” now Walter’s voice was flat and menacing. “Fine. Get into the house and shoot the old man. That’s your job. I will settle the matter with Hank.”

“Yeah? And how?”

“I have a plan. I know what to do.”

“You do not know shit what to do.”

“We’ll help him, take him in the car and let him go in another state.”

Jesse blinked.

“He’s not going to pursuit us in another state. He’s got no authority to operate there. So, we let him go and drive wherever we want.”

“It’s like… you and me?”

“Yes. You and me. Please, Jesse, consider it my last wish. He’s my family. I won’t let you shoot him and you know that.”

Jesse was looking at Walter, still full of doubt.

“But you promise that? You give your word?”

“You have my word.”

“And it’s not some fucking trick to set me up?”

“No. Help me now and I will help you not to get behind bars.”

Jesse sighed and put the gun down.

“I will find something,” he said, then turn around and headed for the cottage to the continuous bell-ringing. 

Walter took the pistol away and put Hank’s head into both hands.

“So, it’s you and him,” Hank whispered. “What the shit are you mixed up in, Walter? Sky and Junior are worried to death. Don’t tell me it’s all about your pot-smoking…”

Hank coughed and went pale. 

“Don’t talk. Just don’t talk now, okay?” Walter said, groping hastily for artery above the collar-bone to stop bleeding. 

“I followed the car of that punk druggie and I found you here, and that psycho Salamanca half-dead…” 

“No. I found you. And I will help you, and we’ll all be fine if you do what I say.”

“You know, I have authority to take you both by the ass in every state and country, don’t you?”

“I know. But he,” Walter pointer at the house. “He doesn’t know. He's shot down a man, he has a gun and he’s out of his wits when he’s scared. We had a very bad day, Hank. Don’t make it worse.”

Hank closed his eyes. 

“What you gonna do?”

“I’ll come up with something. A brain the size of Wisconsin, remember?” Walter tried to smile encouragingly but failed. 

“Yeah, you will need it…” Hank muttered and went silent, his eyes became blank.

Walter pulled off his shirt, made a kind of cloth-tourniquet of it and started to twist it on Hank’s arm. 

“Jesse! Hurry up, for the god’s sake!”

There was a commotion in the house and Jesse appeared on the doorstep, holding a box in his hands. 

“Hey, I found some stuff there, but it’s like the old man’s pills and all…”

Walter took the box without a word and told Jesse to go and find some water and towels.

He gave Hank an antibiotic and pain killers, then took him into his car, placing him in the back seat. Meanwhile Jesse searched Tuco’s body. He took his wallet and several packets with meth and went to the house again. He got into Hank’s SUV heavily armed with guns and spare magazines and gave Walter a defiant look. They were ready to leave when the bell-ringing came again from the house, desperate and loud, as if the old man was cursing them in farewell. 

Jesse and Walter looked at each other. Then Jesse pulled on the door, got out and went into the house.

“Walter,” the hoarse whisper came from the back seat.

“Don’t say a word.”

“Just put your foot down and go. We are going to handle this, I promise. Come on.” 

Walter stared before him, with his hand on the wheel. The ringing became wild then there was a sharp sound of the shot and all was still again.

“Walter, it’s not too late yet. Leave him here with all blood on his hands and they will go easy on you. Whatever this dipshit has dragged you in, you have a way out. You are not a criminal, you’re a good man, I know you, so step on it and let’s get out of here!”

Jesse came out, shoving the gun under his belt. 

“Hank, I am not a good man any more. Not the one you used to know. I’ve done things much worse than pot-smoking. And you know what? I don’t want to go to jail too. Even if they’ll go easy on me.”

Walter lifted his head and met his brother-in-law astonished look in the rearview mirror. That look on Hank’s face gave him a pleasant feeling. That Hank would have think twice before giving a gun to Walter Junior without asking his father first. 

Jesse got into the car. He didn’t look at anyone. 

“Let’s go,” he said.

Walter started the engine and noticed that Jesse’s fingers were trembling again.

***

Late in the afternoon the things became worse. Hank shivered all over and was in high fever. They were driving to Texas, but it was obvious that Hank might never have a chance to get there and to refresh his honeymoon trip memories. 

They lost their way twice because they didn’t have a map and Walter made Jesse switch off the locator as well as all the cell phone.

They had to be very cautious. Broken glass and bullet traces made the SUV look suspicious, so they chose country roads and avoided public places. And it was a really thirsty car. They waited till dark to approach a gasoline station, refueled the car as quickly as they could and drove way. 

With each section of the road they covered Walter became more restless. He was exhausted but didn’t let Jesse to take the driver’s seat. Keeping hands on the wheel gave the illusion of control, though the things were absolutely out of control. 

The rational part of his brain told him, that he had to push Jesse out of the car on full speed, turn the car around and drive fast to the nearest hospital, where doctors would take care of Hank while Walter himself would be making full confession to illicit drug production and murder. That might have worked a month ago, but not now. After Walter had made a mess out of Tuco’s den and saw amazement and respect in drug king pin’s eyes, something changed irreversibly in his soul. He faced strong resistance at the idea that he would have to turn himself in to the police and then to appeal to his disease, tough time, or bad influence of his former student to make the jury “go easy on him”. 

The only one thing that he knew for sure was that Hank was dying in the back seat and that he needed immediate medical aid. But he couldn’t find the way to solve the problem without being spotted. 

“We need to get rid of it”, Jesse said.

They were sitting in the SUV on the edge of some ghost town, too tired to drive further. 

Walter rubbed his face with his hand. He would have given worlds now for hot shower and a bed. And they definitely had to eat before driving, Tuco was right.

“We must take Hank to the hospital,” Walter said wearily. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Jesse turned around and looked at Hank. 

“What if he, like, dies on the way? Did you think about it?”

Walter wiped his lips and answered deliberately, 

“No.”

“He’s fucking dying!” Jesse burst out, turning to Mr. White. “What if cops stop us and find a corpse of DEA agent in the car?”

“Well, what are you proposing?”

Jesse glanced at Hank again as if scared that a half-conscious man might hear him.

“We need to get rid of him. Him and his car.”

“No.”

“Mister White, it’s crazy! Fuck his authority or whatever, no way I drive with him in this car!”

“Then you will walk.”

They glared at each other. A car passed them on the road, the headlight picked out Jesse’s sunken face, reflected in his eyes, wide-open with pupils enlarged, and Walter suddenly thought that Jesse might really gave himself a fix, and more than once.

“We are in the same boat, Walter,” Jesse said quietly. “Let’s be reasonable. Get out of the car.”

“Why?”

“Because we both walk, that is why. And leave that fucking car and that half-dead asshole here.”

“This is what you call reasonable? A dead man and our fingerprints all over the car? And how far am I supposed to walk with my cancer? And where? It you want a second dead man, you will get him, I can tell you.”

“Let’s turn on the phone – just for a sec! and call nine-one-one.”

“And what? What are you going to tell them? “Come in the middle of nowhere and please hurry?”

Jesse turned away.

Walter saw his frustration and hurried to nail down his success. 

“I tell you what. You need me to help you. I need Hank and a car. That’s it.”

They ended up in the starting point. But instead of accepting the defeat Jesse yanked the door of the car open and before Walter had time to stop him, Jesse disappeared in the darkness.

Walter didn’t dare to call him. He strained to hear Jesse for a while, thinking about guns and meth and enlarged pupils, then turned to Hank and met his gaze. 

Walter understood that Hank had heard every word.

***

Walter has checked Hank’s bandage, helped him to get out of the car to do number one, and gave him water. Hank accepted his help without a word. He didn’t try to make Walter change his mind anymore. He has seen and heard enough and was too weak. 

They spent almost an hour in a deep silence. It was long past midnight, and Jesse didn’t come back. Walter was dizzy. From time to time he was actually sleeping, then he woke up in panic and fell asleep again. 

He was again at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was in his bed, trying to delay the moment when he would have to open his eyes and start another dull day. He heard Skyler talking on the phone, trying to persuade someone at the bank to hold back on loan payment. But he knew that debt collectors were on their way, he wanted to tell Skyler to stop talking and start to pack things, but it was too late. The engine roared, the headlight dazzled his eyes, and Walter suddenly understood that the dream was real. He found himself in the stuffy car in the middle of nowhere, squinting at blinding electric lights, having no idea what was going on but knowing perfectly well that it was no good. 

He heard the slam of a door, quick steps, the knock at the window and the voice of Jesse Pinkman said loudly, “Cover your face.”

Walter was confused. He turned up to look at Hank, but he was unconscious.

The knock came again, louder than before.

“Yo, I said cover your face and open the door. Don’t move, bitch!”

By the way the last words were said Walter realized that they were addressed to someone else. That thought made him panic. He hurried to find his glasses and a towel that they took from Tuco’s house to wipe blood from Hank’s shoulder. It was all covered with red stains and Walter thought that he would look like a real madman with it on his head, but it didn’t matter. 

He opened the door and saw Jesse and a man in emergency ambulance uniform, scared to death, because Jesse was pressing the pistol to the man’s head.

“Is he still breathing?” Jesse asked. He had flipped down his hood, so only his mouth and unshaved chin could be seen.

Walter could only nod in reply.

“Good.”

Jesse turned away and shouted, “Now, get out and come here, slowly, and I wanna see your hands, got it?”

Walter got out of the car too and saw an ambulance. He blinked several times. It was impossible. Or he was still dreaming. He did nothing, just stood and watched ambulance men taking Hank out of the jeep, putting him on a litter and doing all their routine work, looking nervously at Jesse who kept his gun trained on them.

“What’s his blood type?” one of the men asked.

“The hell I know,” Jesse answered. “If you got some fresh asshole’s blood, that would, like, fit.”

“It’s “O”, Walter said quickly. 

“Got it?” Jesse waved his gun. “Now take him and drive like the devil is after yah.” 

And they did.

Jesse turned to Walter. They were staring at each other for a couple of seconds, then Jesse made a strangled sound and laughed.

He was laughing like crazy, wiping tears from his eyes and moaning, “Man, that thing on your head…”

It looked more like fit of hysterics, but Walter didn’t try to stop it.

Jesse couldn’t stand upright, he sat on the ground and pressed his back to the tire, still laughing but not so wildly. Walter took away the towel from his head and sat beside him.

“We should think about it,” he said.

“About what?”

“The outfit. Never have anything to cover a face. That’s not the way real gangsters work.”

“Yeah, those ski masks sucked, you’re right, man.”

“Where did you get that ambulance?”

“They knocked me over.”

“What!?”

“Not seriously, the guy behind the wheel had good reactions and the brakes were just so. I just fell down. Think I got a couple of bruises but you know, one more or less makes no difference.”

“You threatened them with the gun?”

“Yeah.”

Jesse went silent. He was looking above at the stars. Walter got up, took two bottles of water out of the car and handed one to Jesse. 

“What do you think next?” Jesse asked after drinking gratefully almost a half of a bottle at once.

“Mexico.”

Jesse choked.

“Man, we have, like, killed a guy from cartel. Things will be getting really hot for us in Mexico, that I can tell you.”

“There is not only one cartel in Mexico. With this head,” Walter pointed at his bald head, “and these hands,” he pointed at Jesse’s hands, clutching the bottle, “we will make millions of dollars.”

Jesse didn’t ask about Walter’s family. He just looked at him attentively from the ground and slowly nodded.

Walter reached out and helped Jesse to get up.

“I’ll drive,” Jesse said.


End file.
